Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Cool GIF of a 2025 Perseid

NASA ^ | 16 Aug, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Renaud & Olivier Coppe

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: The camera battery died about 2am local time on August 12, while shooting in the bright moonlit skies from a garden in Chastre, Brabant Wallon, Belgium, planet Earth. But not before it captured the frames used to compose this cool animated gif of a brilliant Perseid meteor and a lingering visible trail known as a persistent train. The Perseid meteor, a fast moving speck of dust from the tail of large periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle, was heated to incandescence by ram pressure and vaporized as it flashed through the upper atmosphere at 60 kilometers per second. Compared to the brief flash of the meteor, its wraith-like trail really is persistent. A characteristic of bright meteors, a smoke-like persistent train can often be followed for many minutes wafting in the winds at altitudes of 60 to 90 kilometers.

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; astronomy; nasa; perseid

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[blueunicorn6]

And another cloaked Romulan ship bites the dust.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

M.C. I think I see Perseus as the ZOT passes through!

These pictures cram so many stars into the picture that its hard to pick out the constellations. I imagine its even worse in places like NYC where the light pollution results in about 5 or 6 stars and the moon viewable on a really good clear night.

[telescope115]

What a great catch!

[Larry Lucido]

"You're not Perseid material!"

"We'll just see about that. Ta ta, Swift-Tuttle."

[Nateman]

The tears of Saint Lawrence. Martyred on August 10 258 AD. The origin of these meteors is Swift Tuttle. If that comet ever hit Earth it would end Civilization.